Hello, and welcome to the Season 2, Episode 21 of the Bones & Bobbins Podcast!
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The Bones & Bobbins Podcast, Season 2, Episode 21: The First Femmes of Forensics
S02E21: Kate Warne, the heroic first woman Pinkerton detective, and Pearl Tytell, handwriting detective and trailblazing forensic document examiner.
When you need a tricky job done, you have to hire the best! As the first lady detective, Kate Warne’s work with the Pinkertons opened new investigative doors for the agency, helped foil a presidential assasination plot, and paved the way for the creation of the CIA. (We’re also told that she did a fabulous southern belle cosplay.) Pearl Tytell’s groundbreaking document investigation techniques exposed fraud in the highest levels of the government and the lowest reaches of backroom business deals and career-ending gossip mills. (She once even uncovered a fake claim to Russian royalty!) At times, her analysis carried more weight in the courts than the opinion of the FBI. From typewriter quirks to ink colors and paper stock, when Pearl was the expert witness, everybody listened!
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Show Notes:
Here are links to the sources and resources we used while researching this episode:
Links to research materials:
Kate Warne, Pinkerton Detective:
- Archive of Pinkerton History: https://web.archive.org/web/20061015194719/http://www.pinkertons.com/webster.htm
- The Spy of the Rebellion by Allan Pinkerton: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34973/34973-h/34973-h.htm
- Wikipedia Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Warne
- Excerpt from Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Steers: https://books.google.com/books?id=cFi3hlh0VPUC&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Lincoln and the Baltimore Plot 1861; From Pinkerton Records and Related Papers: http://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/sources_secondary/cuthbert_msa_sc_5458_51_1653.pdf
Pearl Tytell, Forensic Document Examiner:
- Pearl Tytell, Examiner of Dubious Documents, Dies at 104: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/02/nyregion/pearl-tytell-dead.html
- Pearl Tytell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Tytell
- How Document Detectives Catch Crooks (Popular Science, April 1964): https://books.google.com/books?id=mi0DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA196&ots=_lUxM-ElLO&dq=%22pearl%20tytell%22&pg=PA196#v=onepage&q=%22pearl%20tytell%22&f=false
- Martin K. Tytell, Typewriter Wizard, Dies at 94: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/nyregion/12tytell.html
- Martin Tytell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Tytell
- Peter V. Tytell, a Typewriter Whisperer, Is Dead at 74: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/peter-v-tytell-dead.html
- Alger Hiss: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/alger-hiss
- Expert Finds His Type of Work Still in Demand : Machines: Firm has identified, made and repaired typewriters for everyone from the FBI to Alger Hiss. (1990): https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-10-09-fi-2250-story.html
- A SLEUTH FOR BILKED BUSINESS (1981): https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/06/business/a-sleuth-for-bilked-business.html
Further Reading:
- The Detective’s Assistant: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22875123-the-detective-s-assistant?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=Jy9ynwleXW&rank=1
- The Somnambulist and the Detective: The Murderer and the Fortune teller by Allan Pinkerton: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30636/30636-h/30636-h.htm
- Kate’s Find a Grave Entry: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6425/kate-warne